Inside the apartment where T'Challa had stayed when he sought refuge with Batman, a total of five people were now crowded together, making the already cramped space feel suffocatingly stagnant.
Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Batman, and Wolverine.
The five of them stood or sat, some leaning against the walls, in an atmosphere that was tense to the absolute limit.
After Luke Cage and Jessica Jones were released from Kingpin's clutches, they hadn't stayed with Daredevil. As a couple, it was naturally impossible for them to live indefinitely in the basement Daredevil had arranged.
Fortunately, Batman had been secretly monitoring their movements, so it hadn't taken much time to gather all five of them tonight.
At first, the other three were unclear about what was happening. But with the arrival of Logan, the Wolverine, the mission from two years ago began to gradually surface.
"…That's roughly the gist of it," Logan said, breaking the long silence.
"What we can confirm now is that except for Batman, the four of us might have all participated in that operation," Daredevil said.
Batman remained silent. Initially, he had analyzed the situation based on the specific identities Captain America had approached; for instance, Iron Man, Batman, and Electro had never been contacted by Captain America.
Only those who had become "superheroes" early on and possessed various abilities were sought out by him.
Now that Logan had brought crucial intelligence, there was no longer any need to pursue that line of analysis.
"Where is Captain America now?" Jessica Jones asked. Dressed in a denim jacket and jeans, she rolled up her sleeves and crossed her arms over her chest.
"I don't know," Logan shook his head. "I just got here from Canada."
"Do you know?" Luke Cage asked. Still wearing his hoodie, half of his dark face was concealed in the shadows cast by the apartment lighting.
He was addressing Batman, but this time, even Batman couldn't give a definitive answer.
"No."
"You could track down Wolverine all the way from Canada, yet there's actually something you don't know?" Luke Cage muttered glumly from his corner.
Wolverine had inevitably found out that Peter Parker was Batman, but both he and Batman agreed on the necessity of protecting secret identities. Therefore, he hadn't mentioned anything about what happened at Aunt May's house just now.
Daredevil and the other two assumed that Wolverine had simply been recruited by Batman to provide clues regarding the operation from two years ago.
"In your respective memories, have any of you ever seen a man and a woman—the man wearing a sleeveless purple suit and carrying a collapsible longbow, and the woman having red hair and a good figure?" Batman asked.
These two were, of course, Hawkeye and Black Widow.
"No."
"No."
Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones all shook their heads.
Logan closed his eyes and thought for a moment before offering an ambiguous reply:
"I've lost my memory before, so this time, the memories of the mission from two years ago didn't vanish completely… I vaguely recall a red-haired woman talking to me. She did have a good figure."
"Height?" Batman pressed.
Wolverine gestured roughly. "Around 1.7 meters."
Batman nodded subtly. The height, hair color, and figure all matched Black Widow's profile, though he couldn't rule out the possibility of it being someone else.
"If you don't remember what the mission was, do you at least remember what you… no, what we did?" Jessica Jones asked Wolverine.
"No." Wolverine had already shaken his head too many times tonight; this time, he chose not to shake it and simply denied it verbally.
"Who sent us on that mission?" Jessica Jones asked again.
"I don't know."
"How did we lose those memories?"
"I don't know."
"Logan, you need to tell us everything you know right now," Jessica Jones said, growing a bit impatient.
"I've already told you everything I know." Noticing Jessica's sharp tone, Wolverine shot her a cold look in return.
Batman hadn't participated in the discussion for a while. Instead, he kept his head down, arm raised, tapping away on the built-in computer of his Gargoyle batsuit as he searched for something.
"I'll find a way to track down Captain America and that woman. Stay in New York for the next few days and wait for my word," Batman instructed, seeing that the information wasn't progressing any further.
Luke Cage and Jessica Jones nodded at Batman. Seeing that he still had his head down, deep in some research, the two didn't say anything more and were the first to leave the apartment.
Daredevil, however, showed no intention of moving. He stood silently with his head bowed, his ears twitching slightly.
Only when both Batman and Daredevil confirmed that Jessica Jones and Luke Cage were well out of earshot did Daredevil turn toward Wolverine and Batman, speaking slowly:
"Batman, the last time you questioned me in the basement, I withheld some information from you."
Batman remained expressionless. "I know."
"Withheld what? You remember the mission?" Logan perked up.
"No," Daredevil shook his head regretfully. "But I've always suspected that our mission… was a massacre."
"A massacre?" Wolverine's eyes widened, his breathing turning heavy. "How did you arrive at that conclusion?"
"Latveria," Batman said, finally looking up as he concluded his search.
Wolverine looked at Batman in confusion, then sudden realization hit him:
"Of course. Since we can't find any leads from ourselves, looking into Latveria—the location of the mission—is indeed a smart way to start."
"Yeah," Daredevil said, his tone heavy. "When you first mentioned Latveria, it reminded me of a news report from two years ago."
"The news stated that a gas leak caused an explosion in the capital of Latveria. Over four hundred people died and more than a thousand were injured in that incident," Batman said, reciting the data he had just pulled up.
"Furthermore, to mobilize the four of us—and even Captain America—for a joint operation… I think we all know exactly who gave the order. It was Nick Fury," Daredevil added.
"Why wait until those two left to say this?" Logan asked. As a newcomer, he didn't know Luke Cage and Jessica Jones well.
"They're too young. I'm worried they wouldn't be able to handle the truth of the mission," Daredevil explained.
"If that incident really was our doing…" Wolverine looked down at his hands. Without a doubt, the blood debt on them would grow even heavier.
"We need to seek help from someone," Batman said.
"Who?"
"Iron Man, Tony Stark."
"He has nothing to do with that mission. Why look for him?"
"He knows the location of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier," Batman replied.
The S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier was mobile. Although Batman could hack into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s internal network, he couldn't pinpoint the Helicarrier's exact location.
However, Tony Stark had been aboard the Helicarrier before, and Batman believed he must have left something behind to track its position.
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